Expecting the new government to do what is right

Ontario has a new government. The Progressive Conservative party has won a majority mandate to govern.

We wish them well. We hope and pray that the new government will govern the province at all times with wisdom, courage and principle. We also hope and pray that the all of the men and women elected to the Legislature will undertake their duties in good faith, always setting the wider interest of the province above the narrower interest of the party.

Although it was not publicly discussed during the election campaign, the unfairness and discrimination of Ontario’s educational funding policies affects a large number of Ontarians. A majority of Ontarians have indicated that they support a change in the educational funding to include some level of public funding for independent schools and thus accommodate more choice in the educational system.

It is an affront to conscience that Ontario, the largest and wealthiest province, has resolutely refused to take any steps to remedy, even partially, let alone end the ongoing discrimination of its policies. This is especially unacceptable in light of the fact that all of the western provinces and Quebec do extend a measure of public funding to independent schools.

The new government, as all new governments, will receive the benefit of a reasonable period of grace to get settled into its new responsibilities. But afterward, GAJE will once again publicly urge Queen’s Park to finally take the appropriate steps to do the moral, right thing: bring a measure of fairness to a patently unfair and punitively discriminatory educational funding system.